Vote on HISD’s proposed schedule change

The Houston Independent School District has posted a survey on its website to gauge opinions from students, parents, school employees and the community on its proposal to change school hours next year. The administration says the plan to standardize the times that schools start and end — from 22 schedules to four — would save an estimated $1.2 million in transportation costs.

Under the plan, schools would run for 7 hours and 30 minutes. District officials initially touted the change as a way to add an average of 19 minutes to the school day. They’ve since noted, as we did in this blog post, that elementary schools would see the largest gain in instructional time. Currently, the district’s elementary schools have an average day of 7 hours and 7 minutes. Middle and high schools have an average day of 7 hours and 25 minutes.

The proposed hours are as follows:

About half of all elementary schools would operate from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and half would operate from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.